


Ir-Rash-ionality

by OmnipresentNuance



Category: The Loud House (Cartoon)
Genre: April Fools' Day, Bath, Gen, Itching Powder, Partial Nudity, Pranks, Regret, Sibling Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:22:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24276559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OmnipresentNuance/pseuds/OmnipresentNuance
Summary: Typically, Luan doesn’t apologize for any of the pranks she conducts. Yet thinking back to her craziest April Fools’ Day and how a more simpler prank that involves exploiting Leni’s love of clothing and her airy personality, plus receiving some wrath from a handful of her siblings convinces Luan she needs to put herself through some type of humiliation of her own as repentance.
Kudos: 3





	Ir-Rash-ionality

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings, my good readers. You know the drill by now, got something else for all you pretty people out there.
> 
> Once again, it's time for me to showcase another overlooked and underutilized sister pair, this time involving the ever so delightful duo of Leni and Luan. I think they make for such a nature fit together given I'd say they are two of the most naturally happy and jovial among the group of siblings.
> 
> That'll be all I'll mention until we get to the end, so until that point, enjoy!
> 
> The Loud House is the exclusive property of Nickelodeon and Viacom. The usage of the setting, characters and such is based on nothing more than a pure affinity for everything and is not being used for monetary purposes.

In most given times, Luan Loud was one of the most cheerful girls both within her family and all around in general any one person could come across.

However, this was far from one of those times in this moment, because here she was laying down on the floor in her bedroom deep in despair. This was not a voluntary choice on her part, but how this came about will be explained in due time.

First, the most immediate defining characteristic of Luan is her love of all things relating to comedy. One specific category of comedy that stood out to her was pranking. Yes, the act of physical goofing around at the expense of others and for the sole entertainment value of the prank puller was a surefire favorite of hers. Ask anyone in her family if one ever needed further confirmation of such and they'll gladly give those assurances. Well, "gladly" might not be the most immediate choice of words that can be entirely accurate given that it was that very same family of Luan's that bore the brunt of her pranks, but one would get the point anyway.

In any event, despite her normally kind and sweet nature, Luan wasn't often one to apologize for any of her pranks and for the most part in her mind, why would she? Largely her pranking was harmless in practice and whenever physical pain factored in to the poor souls who fall victim, it either wasn't intentional or was minor enough that she assumed whomever was pranked wouldn't hold it against her for too long.

The only time that Luan would consider feeling remorseful in any circumstance relating to pranks was April Fools' Day. To most people, this was a simple innocuous holiday marked by the first of April, but in the eyes of the Loud family, it's actually one of the most terrifying days of the year. For whatever reason, Luan goes through a complete behavioral change from a sweet, loving girl to a maniacal, plotting mastermind whose pranking goes well beyond the standard of any other given day. So crazy does she get in the lead up to and upon that very day, her family goes to any lengths possible to prepare themselves for the upcoming onslaught of sinister prank variety.

One recent example of this was when the family came up with the idea of sending Luan off to a clowning camp during the same time April Fools' Day was occurring. But what wasn't made apparent in the moment was that this turned out to be one piece of a very much elaborate puzzle set up by her along with the extraordinarily reluctant help with her father, Lynn Sr., in the setup to her biggest April Fools' ever, all due to dangling the prospect of a prank free decade for his assistance. The clown camp was actually a fake and everything that befell the family next, from Vanzilla breaking down and the motel they were staying at was all part of the plan. From that point onward, Lynn Sr. had the unenthusiastic distinction of leading his family around the motel as they fell victim to one outrageously insane prank after another, all as Luan watched on from a nearby control room. The madness only came to a halt once Lincoln saw through his father's end of things and the latter confessed to his son over such. Ultimately, the night ended with the family getting back at Luan by using many of the same elements of those pranks they went through. Yet instead of showing any remorse or sense of humility, she wickedly congratulated them while vowing retaliation for next April Fools'.

But that was several weeks ago, and since that time, Luan _has_ actually felt regretful about all that's happened, albeit she's not gone public about it to her family. It really did eventually dawn upon her how some of those so-called "pranks" as she'd retroactively deemed them so had all the potential in the world to be fatal.

Lisa could've been crushed to death when that bed retracted on her.

Luna could've suffocated inside the huge batch of gelatin she fell into.

Leni could've at best suffered many broken bones and internal injuries, or at worst may have come to her own untimely demise had there been even the slightest miscalculation in one direction or another when it came to being launched in the air by that inflatable clown and being stuck on those several sheets of flypaper on the motel sign.

Lana could've perished from her allergy to rhubarb if it had flared up seriously enough and not having gotten medical attention in time when she landed in that pit of pies.

Lily very well could've been squashed mortally by the pile of clothes that came falling down had Rita not stepped in right at the nick of time to take the blow instead.

Lynn could've possibly contracted any range of deadly diseases from the monkey that attacked her, in addition to all sorts of scratches and biting sustained on top of that, after it was swapped in place for Lily.

And as far as Lincoln was concerned...Luan shuddered at what he could've gone through had he actually made it to the roof until he saw through their father's role in all this insanity at the last minute.

And those were the ones where death was a very real possibility. That wasn't including the harm done to Lori's eyebrows and then some when Vanzilla's airbag blew up in her face unexpectedly, the unmitigated assault on Lola's sinuses and senses of all sorts from being sprayed by that skunk like she had been or the potentially serious burn damage Lucy's skin could've gotten when she was drenched in bleach.

" _Well, it's not like she ingested that bleach and gotten poisoned as a result._ " Luan could've very well had stupidly said should she have ever tried in justifying that last one out loud.

Despite the personal regrets of everything involved, this was _not_ in fact the main reason for Luan's despondent mood, although it certainly didn't help, nor was it the reason she was laying on the floor in her room. Rather, it was something seemingly on the surface far less bonkers, but in a sense more deeply cutting on a personal emotional level.

The night before, Luan had came up with a new devious prank that would, to put it one way, _scratch_ a certain _itch_ she's been thinking about for a while now and hadn't really thought of a way of accomplishing it until that time.

The prank in question? Lacing some of her siblings' clothes with small, trace amounts of itching powder. Not too much as to make it look too obvious, but just enough across select portions of the clothes so that it would drive them nuts all day long. Her initial plan was that she would sneak over just before bedtime and gather up some clothes from some select siblings of hers, in this case Luna, Lynn, Lincoln, Lana and Lola, then the following morning she would get up early before anyone else did, apply the itching powder and hand the clothes over to those respective siblings as they would head into the bathroom to shower or bathe.

However, Luan realized that last portion would potentially be a dead giveaway that something suspect could be afoot. Unless they right away assumed it was out of genuine goodness of the heart, her siblings would have every reason in the world to be skeptical to see her out of the blue simply handing their clothes over to them at some early hour in the morning.

But as convenience would have it for her in that morning, Luan found a golden opportunity in the form of Leni. Her second oldest sister just so happened to be awake as well and on the spot, Luan asked her to hand out those clothes once those five siblings of theirs woke up to get their shower or bath on. Leni gladly accepted to do that, given she loved doing even the slightest or most innocent things involving clothes, but in the event she were to notice any of the itching powder, Luan explained it away as it being "fashion powder" to enhance the fabric and texture of everything. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Leni fell for that explanation no questions asked, causing Luan to chuckle internally about how easily she manipulated the ditsy fashionista into being an unwitting accomplice to this so long as the justification was in relation to clothing, no matter the flimsiness of it all.

As the day went on, like clockwork, those five siblings who soon became victims of this crafty prank slowly went more insane in scratching themselves while being clueless as to why there was a persistent itch. Such amusing highlights, if they should be called that, included Lynn having to use her hockey stick for added effort, Lana scooting her butt on the floor like a seriously distressed canine and Lola even having resorting to biting and gnawing on whatever portions of her body she could conceivably reach. Regarding if Luna and Lincoln did anything weird on their end, they did try assisting each other in scratching certain "appropriate to touch between siblings" areas of the other should that at all be considered unusual tactics.

As much as she could, Luan refrained from laughing, giggling, cracking any puns or even so much as smiling or grinning any time she was in the vicinity of her itchy siblings, lest it become clear she was the culprit of their discomfort. But eventually, her role had to be revealed in some manner or another. While paying a quick visit to his room, Luan dropped a pair of less than subtle hints through puns to Lincoln that it was indeed her doing that caused his itchiness.

His reaction to this, however, would take her off guard.

Him getting somewhat mad at her was the expected part. Getting shoved out of his room and the door slammed shut? Not really as expected.

" _Luan, I don't say this often, but sometimes you really are insufferable!_ " She remembered her only brother saying just prior to the door being slammed.

The bad news only kept coming as no less than a few seconds after getting up and brushing herself off did Luan turn around to see three more fifths of the prank victimization in Lynn, Lana and Lola. They were within earshot of also learning that it was she who caused their subtle but persistent misery.

" _You big meanie!_ " The princess had screamed.

" _Here I though it was poison ivy, but_ _it was_ _you_ _that_ _made me itchy?!"_ The more tomboyish twin added agitated in that moment.

" _I should give you a licking like you were a punching bag!_ " The sports girl threatened on the spot, cracking her knuckles just in case her sister wasn't quite clear on what she meant by a "licking".

Alas, no threat of such was carried through when a sudden surge of itchiness overcame Lynn that caused Luan to brush on aside and move past this triumvirate of annoyed siblings.

About the next hour of Luan's day was spent in her room, but that is where things escalated to a certain degree. While looking out the window, perhaps beginning to feel a pang of regret, she didn't hear or sense someone coming inside and touching her shoulder. Immediately, she thought it was Lynn who was coming to fulfill in her earlier threat and out of defensive instinct alone, Luan whipped around and slapped who she thought was her sporty younger sister.

Instead, it turned out to be Luna, the final sibling who was targeted in this scheme of scratching fever. She intended to inquire what her sister was up to, but that went out the figurative window upon being stricken like so.

" _The hell was that for, brah?!"_ Luan could recount the seething rocker growling at her.

One dumb argument between them later where Luan all but for a fleeting moment unambiguously and unforgivably confessed to being the mastermind of her older sister's suffering, plus other stupid nonsense brought up which couldn't easily be remembered, and then the comedienne felt her own stinging smack across her face courtesy of Luna, who then left in a fit of anger.

This was all quite distressing, but yet still, even _that_ wasn't the primary cause of Luan getting laid out on the floor back first.

In actuality, she was still standing after the slap from Luna, ferocity and minuscule amount of blood resulting from the impact swiping across her mouth notwithstanding. As horrible as having being struck like that was, Luan casually wiped her mouth with some tissue paper and was almost about to simply move on from it all.

That is, until Leni then suddenly arrived..and was not in a good mood _at all_.

" _Ugh, I can't believe you, Luan!_ " She crossly chastised her younger sister at the time.

Turned out that Leni had learned all about Luan's little conniving prank through those five siblings of theirs who had to go through it. All that could've happened then for Luan was having to hear a lecture from Leni about how wrong it was to pull off such a scheme and the worst perhaps might've passed.

But of course, her mouth wasn't working in conjunction with her brain at the time and out of last minute spite and desperation, _this_ little idiotic gem had to come on out….

" _Well, you were the ditsy little dope who was dumb enough for playing along with everything, so who are you to complain, huh?! Can't believe you easily fell for that and were just stupid enough to believe fashion powder was even a thing! But I guess once clothing is brought into the picture, your brain shuts down like it does more often than not!_ "

Rage. Anger. Fury. Ire. And any other synonyms congruent with being mad. One would almost never associate those emotions with Leni, but upon those bitter words coming out of Luan's mouth and entering into her eardrums, the girl who was arguably the sweetest little flower of the Loud family wilted away and temporarily sprouted into a nasty weed.

And then…

" _You...you...you...bitch!"_

If wrath was an emotion that was rarely unearthed from Leni, swearing was practically unheard of. A nerve had to be touched unlike any other for her to even _contemplate_ this behavior, let alone go through with it. But learning that she was essentially duped into this whole mess in the first place can cause a rare convergence of feelings inside the typically bubbly fashionista.

Which also likely explains the truly vicious slap she then handed down to Luan that knocked her right to the ground before leaving in a huff.

Getting the taste smacked out of her mouth by Luna? Understandable to an extent, as the rocker girl is capable of having a short fuse that can be lit when provoked. Lynn threatening to dole out a drubbing? Hey, it's not like the junior member of the family bearing that given name hasn't shown to have anger issues in the past. Even Lincoln's end of things? Sure, why not, even he has his limits before he could snap as well.

But Leni? Perhaps the sweetest of the bunch? Resorting to an act of individualized violence, something she'd almost never do even at her most angry? That's as rare as rare can get. Not only did this slap hurt physically more than the one Luna gave her, but it cut deeper on an emotional level inside of Luan. And why shouldn't it? She exploited Leni's love of anything in relation to clothing and disgustingly took advantage of her sister's occasionally ditsy disposition all just so she could selfishly revel in seeing a handful of her siblings suffer in feelings of itchiness.

And _that_ is the reason for Luan laying back first grief stricken and deep in despair. The guilty remembrance of those deathtraps masquerading as pranks from weeks earlier. The regret of today's "prank". And ultimately, complete shame of the exploitation of Leni in it all. A rueful combination that needed forgiveness to be earned.

She could give all the sobbing, teary-eyed apologies in the world to her siblings, but in Luan's mind, that'd hardly be enough. She needed to feel their irritation, their pain, their agony…

And she felt like there was only one was to fulfill that.

Sighing depressingly, Luan moved the first muscle in her body in the last several minutes until she pulled herself off from the floor. Right away, she then rummaged through the closet and found the plastic zip-up storage bag containing the itching powder tucked away in a corner. She brought it out and placed on her bed.

Next, she pulled her blouse over her head, then took her skirt off before putting also putting them on her bed. She even then kicked off her shoes and pulled her socks off, leaving her only clad in her training bra and panties. Finally, she opened up the bag and was about to place a trace amount of the itching powder in her clothes like she did to those belonging to her siblings. However, she hit a pause.

"Wait...this isn't going to be enough. I can't just go through the exact same thing they did. I need to suffer more... _way_ more. Not just for today, but for the past April Fools'...and a whole heck of a lot more..."

In a spur of the moment act, Luan took the bag, brought it with her to the bathroom, grabbed a handful of the itching powder and straight up applied it onto her chest, midsection and stomach. Then, she did the same along her arms, shoulders, upper back, lower back, the exposed portions of her backside and finally her legs.

Within seconds, the powder's namesake sensation kicked in with unimaginable agony.

* * *

It had been about twenty minutes since Leni brought her hand across the face of Luan in response to learning about her duping into the morning's prank and for Luan's fiery blustering hurtful words added on top of that.

But in that twenty minutes, Leni was feeling very bad about all that transpired. For as much as she hated being tricked into assisting Luan, even she knew striking her sister and cursing at her crossed several lines in terms of retaliation by anyone, certainly let alone herself. If there was any consolation, none of the five siblings who were victims in all this held absolutely no animus in Leni's direction for her own little role, as they fully blamed Luan for everything.

Still, that didn't make Leni feel entirely better and she wanted to at the very least apologize for her own actions against her sister. With that in mind, she headed upstairs and knocked on the bedroom door where she thought Luan would be in.

"Luan?" Leni inquired.

She didn't get a response, so she knocked again a handful more times and calling her younger sister's name a couple more instances on top of that, but still no response. Undaunted, Leni simply let herself inside.

But it became apparent to her that Luan was not in fact in the vicinity, and the placement of her clothes on top of and right next to her bed only made Leni grow increasingly worried.

"Huh? What's going on? Why are her clothes here like this?" She wondered to herself out loud.

However, only seconds after asking herself that did Leni hear some distressed grunting, groaning and whimpering coming from the bathroom. Like with the bedroom door, her first instinct was to knock.

"Luan? Are you in there?" Leni asked worriedly.

Again, no immediate response came about, but that didn't stop her from opening the door.

The second she looked inside, Leni screamed at the sight that befell her eyes.

"OM-gosh! Luan!"

There sat her younger sister on the floor only in her underwear, but Luan's relative state of undress was far from the actual worrying aspect of everything.

Having heard Leni's scream, the rest of the family came thundering up the stairs and they too would bear witness to the highly unfortunate scene before them with a shared panic-stricken gasp.

Inside the bathroom, Luan was furiously scratching herself, and apparently she'd been doing this for an undetermined prolonged period of time because large portions of her body that were not her head, face, neck and anything that was covered up by her underwear was now beet red in rashes. Even more worrisome, they were even a couple small bleeding wounds along her shoulders and chest likely due to how deeply she might've been scratching those areas.

In an instant, her parents moved past the rest of her siblings and came down to her side.

"Oh my word...Luan, what did you do to yourself?" Rita asked her daughter, practically on the verge of tears.

Luan did not respond, instead still kept on scratching.

"Honey, please, tell us what happened!" Lynn Sr. pleaded, hardly holding up any better than his wife.

For a moment, Luan resisted every urge possible in not scratching herself, no matter how irritable her skin was getting, as she tried in explaining everything.

"I...I...covered myself...in…in...itch...ing...powder…"

That was the most she could get out before she resumed in scratching.. However, her parents forcibly held on to her arms to prevent her from doing it some more.

"Luan, you've got to control yourself! You're only going to make it worse on yourself!" Lynn Sr. informed her concernedly.

Everyone watching on was horrified by what has become of Luan, but it appeared that the very siblings she pranked were perhaps the most sorrowful on her behalf. Just from what little she spoke now, they had to gather this was her attempt in trying to write her wrong by putting herself through the same ordeal they did, only by an order of magnitude larger. But even they knew this was far beyond anything they'd wish upon her or would ever want to see her go through and because of it, whatever animosity that had for her completely vanished.

"You know, I think what's best right now for you is to have a bath with baking soda in it, Luan. It can help with your itching and rashes." Rita suggested.

As that had been offered up, Rita stood up and started running the bathtub faucet and plugged up the drain. Meanwhile, the rest of the family took their leave and shut the door, although out of the group, Leni took in another couple seconds of looking on sadly at Luan before leaving.

Once the bathtub was sufficiently filled up, Rita shut off the faucet, sighing as she then stood up.

"I'll be right back with the baking soda." She said.

All Luan did was nod gently while her mother left for the moment. Meanwhile, she continued again in resisting all urges imaginable not to scratch herself anymore, but that was easier said than done.

A couple of minutes later, the door opened up again, but surprisingly enough, it was Leni who came back.

"Leni? Why are you back here?" Luan asked.

"Well...I told Mom that I really wanted to help you out with all your itchy problems and stuff." Leni replied.

As proof of that, Luan noticed the box of baking soda in her older sister's arms, plus a measuring cup and for some odd reason, a glass as well.

"Uh, what's with the glass?" Luan inquired about.

"Well, apparently Mom says you're supposed to drink some water before doing all of this." Leni explained.

She put aside the baking soda and measuring cup for a second as she filled up the glass from the sink, then she handed it over to her sister. Despite her confusion of all that's going on, Luan took the glass into her hand and drank from it while Leni added in two cups worth of baking soda into the bath. While waiting for it to set, Leni sat down next to Luan.

"Leni, why are you even here in the first place?" Luan asked.

"What do you mean? I want to help you, that's all. Isn't that what were supposed to do as a family?" Leni wondered.

"Yeah, but I wouldn't think you even wanted to be near me both because of how I duped you into being an unwitting accomplice to that dumb prank of mine and for what you said and did to me after learning about said duping." Luan said, sighing woefully.

Leni whimpered softly while she brought her sister into a hug, "Luan, I'm so sorry for that. Even if I though it was totes not nice of you for tricking me like you did or when you said those really mean things to me, I should never have hurt you or called you the 'b' word…"

Luan chuckled derisively, "After what I did today, that 'b' word seems more than befitting. Besides, I should be the one apologizing here. There was no excuse for me in how I dragged you into my harebrained scheme today."

As Luan sighed again, Leni checked over the bath and assumed the baking soda had set in enough for her sister to get in. She patted Luan on her shoulder as a signal for her to do just that.

Luan stood up, then she looked at Leni.

"Um, Leni….do you mind?"

She might've been half naked already, but the idea of taking off the last remainder of her clothing with her sister watching on did still make her feel quite uncomfortable. Understanding and heeding the request, Leni turned away and also covered her eyes. She waited until she could clearly hear the sound of Luan stepping into and fully situating herself inside the bath before turning back over.

Though she was still feeling self-conscious about having nothing on while in Leni's presence, the baking soda in the water did do enough to conceal Luan's bare body from full view. In any event, the bicarbonate substance already seemed to start doing its job in soothing any serious itching sensations within her.

"Did Mom say how long I have to soak in this?" Luan asked.

"I think it's something like about 30 to 40 minutes." Leni answered.

"Oh...all right...might as well go with 40 just to be safe." Luan said.

While she began to relax, Leni came over closer and sat down on the floor again next to the tub.

"Leni, you don't really need to be here with me the whole time." Luan said.

"I know, but I really do want to be here for you. I feel it's the least I can do because of how sorry I am for what was said and done, and for feeling sorry about your own situation, too." Leni said, smiling a little, "Besides, it's kinda like the couple of times when I used to help out with your baths when you were like four or something like that."

"I guess, but there's a huge difference between when I was four and needed help with getting a bath and now with me being fourteen and being capable of doing this myself." Luan brought up.

Even though she was very able in doing this herself, Luan pretty much got the hint that Leni wasn't going anywhere and admittedly, she really didn't have it in her heart to tell her sister to leave her alone at the end of the day, either. Having her company was actually nice.

"But back to what you said about being sorry for what you did, I sort of think I had it coming….just like how Lincoln shoved me, Lynn threatened me with a beating and Luna also having slapped me as well." Luan remarked.

Leni gasped, "What?! They did all that to you?"

"Uh...yeah. You didn't know about that?" Luan asked in surprise, "I'd assume you did since you must've heard from them plus Lana and Lola in order for you to confront me earlier."

"No, they never said anything about that. Wow...that's, like, really mean of them!" Leni said a little miffed.

"Whoa, no need to get totally steamed like one of Dad's vegetable casseroles!" Luan cautioned, even actually cracking a very tiny smile for the briefest of moments, "Besides, like I said, maybe I had it all coming…"

"No, please don't saying something like that, Luan. You shouldn't have gotten hurt by any of us even after today's prank." Leni insisted on.

"Well, maybe not for that, but I must've had something coming to me perhaps instead for what happened this past April Fools' Day...or as I've come to see it, the night I nearly killed most of my family." Luan put it morosely.

"Uh...but...nobody, like, died or stuff...and that's what is most important...right?" Leni questioned very hesitantly.

"Oh, don't get me wrong, Leni, I was eased beyond belief everyone made it out alive, but will not change the fact that could've easily been the fate of one too many members of our family on what is in hindsight a horrible night that should never have occurred." Luan said, mixed with relief and regret.

She breathed another sigh and groaned.

"I mean, take yourself as an example. I'd say it's nothing short of a miracle you're walking upright at all. Had the trajectory been even one degree off either side for the 'prank' you were on the end of, you'd been very badly injured...or worse. Plus, besides you, on my count Lisa, Luna, Lana, Lily, Lynn and Lincoln all could've met a similarly grim fate. Had any one of you died that night...I wouldn't be able to live with myself. Assuming I'd somehow be lucky enough to dodge murder charges or anything of that sort, and Dad or even Mom for that matter don't also get charged for something like negligent homicide, I would've give up on pranking in an instant. Heck, I'd might even think about giving up on comedy altogether again like I briefly once did, because anything comedic would be a cruel reminder that I caused death instead of laughter."

After Luan had finished her glum thoughts, silence dominated the scene for the next few minutes, as Leni didn't have much to say on her end. She absolutely hated to hear and see her sister enter a phase of self-loathing even if Luan had every right in the world to feel that way.

Then, the silence was broken by one simple, yet sorrow-filled question.

"Why am I like this?" Luan wondered.

"Huh? What do you mean, Luan?" Leni asked.

"I'm talking about what compels me to act the way I do, be it when it comes to pranking or especially when I transform into whatever the heck I become on April Fools' Day. I mean, am I inherently flawed in some manner? Is there something wrong inside this head of mine?" Luan said, tapping the side of her head, "If that ever turned out to be true, which wouldn't surprise me at all, then I had some serious nerve to suggest you weren't that bright earlier...and that's the nicest way of saying it."

She sighed once more and covered up her face with her hands. Again, Leni didn't have the most immediate of responses, but she felt motivated in finding something to give assurances to her younger sister.

Eventually, she might've came up with those words which could help out.

"Luan, can you look at me, please?"

It took a few seconds, but Luan pulled her hands down and looked over to her older sister who had a warm, sympathetic smile showing off.

"Listen, I can't give you the best answer about what you do when it comes to pranks or April Fools'...but take it from someone who also can't always explain why she sometimes acts like her head has a bunch of air in it that we all have our flaws, but we can't let them look past the fact that we're nice and good and all that, right?" Leni told her younger sister.

Luan groaned a little, "Well, no offense, Leni, and not that I'm dismissing your overall point, but I think you're underselling it in my case. Setting up pranks that nearly put several within my family to meet an untimely demise isn't just merely a 'flaw', but to me it's more like a total character deficiency. How reckless could I have possibly been that night? Again, my head is not outside the realm of possibly being messed up for me to even think up, let alone execute it...wait, no, that's a horrible choice of word given the context. 'Pull it off' is more like it. See that? I can't even pick my words correctly on this sort of thing! What else could be wrong with me?!"

"Luan, don't beat yourself up so much over this!" Leni stressed to her, reaching out and cupping one of her sister's cheeks, "Look, I won't disagree with how bad and scary all that stuff during the night at the motel was, but I'd hate to see you feel so guilty all these weeks later, too. With all that said, though, I do hope such an experience does make you learn something and you'll think twice before doing anything like that again. Plus, I also hate to ever need to see you put yourself through such torment like when you were scratching so much, too...so please don't do something like that again, okay?"

Internally, Luan would almost say to herself that she was shocked to hear something so eloquent and poignant coming from Leni, but she knew that had to be a total lie she'd be telling herself. In spite of any occasional airy mental missteps, she knew that the older sister before her really was smarter than what her reputation presented herself as. For all that, Luan wished she could reach out from the bath and give Leni a big, thankful hug, but that would obviously get her all dampened up, so for the moment she instead settled for bringing up one of her own hands, put it over the hand belonging to her sister and interlocked fingers with it.

"Thanks, Leni…and I'm sorry again…" Luan simply said, "And listen, for as much as I actually been enjoying your company, I really don't think you need to wait on me hand and foot for however much longer I need to be in here, so you can leave if you like."

Though she didn't mind doing that at all, Leni smiled gently and ultimately acquiesced. She started leaving, but did hear one last request from her younger sister.

"Actually, before you do go entirely, Leni, do you mind at least going over to my room and getting all my clothes that are in there for me?" Luan asked.

"Sure, I can do that." Leni responded.

She took the time in gathering up those clothes and placing them neatly on top of the toilet tank, and while she was at it, also took the baking soda, the measuring cup and the glass with her to return them all to the kitchen.

As she was feeling more relaxed compared to the start of this soaking, Luan was thankful for Leni's assistance and presence, but also came to the conclusion that once she was done here, she had some making up to do with her family, both for today and what happened weeks earlier.

While time slipped on by a little while more, a knocking on the door came about eventually.

"Hey, sorry to bother you again, Luan, but Mom wanted to tell me that it's been about 40 minutes, so you can start finishing things up." Leni said from the other side.

"Oh, okay then. Thanks for the reminder." Luan said back.

From within the cloudy, bicarbonate-induced water, Luan reached out and pulled the plug to initiate the drainage of the bath. She then took a nearby floor mat, laid it out and stepped on it before also grabbing a towel and drying herself off. Once that was done, she got all dressed up again. Though her body still had some rashes, they weren't as red as before she started bathing and more importantly, the agonizing itching sensation wasn't as ever present on top of that.

Finally, Luan emerged out of the bathroom, also bringing the towel she just dried herself off with at hand and put in down the laundry chute, believing it need a washing itself given it being damp with baking soda water. As she turned back around, she saw Leni having come up from the stairs and no matter why the reasoning for her being up here, Luan rushed over and gave her older sister that big hug she meant to dole out earlier.

"Oh...hey, Luan!" Leni said, a bit surprised, but still nonetheless pleased by this act of affection.

"Thank you again, Leni. You really were a big help and yet again, I'm sorry for all that's happened today." Luan said sincerely.

"Aw, it's okay, and I'm sorry for what I did, too." Leni said favorably back.

Delighted, Luan affirmed her embrace a little more as Leni also returned the hug on her end as well. There was a little bit of distress within Leni when a few seconds later she heard her younger sister sniffling and felt a couple of tears on her shoulder, but that only made her hold Luan closer and tried soothing her with some rubs along her back.

As they held on to one another for a little while more, both Leni and Luan looked over to the side where they would conveniently see the rest of their family watching on from the bottom of the stairs.

"Oh, sorry, we don't mean to intrude or anything." Rita told them both, "But since we're here anyway, can we ask how you're holding up, Luan?"

"I'm doing a lot better now, Mom." Luan answered, "And since you are all here, can you gather in the living room for a moment."

Everyone nodded and headed on over there. Meanwhile, Luan looked back at Leni, briefly hugged her again and felt being on the receiving end of a gentle kiss on the cheek from her older sister before they both headed on down to join up with their family.

Upon their arrival, Luan gestured to her sister that she can gather with everyone else while the former stood in the middle of the living room.

"Okay, I'm gonna get straight to it: I owe all of you a bunch of apologies for varying reasons…"

First, she isolated out the five siblings of hers who fell victim to today's prank.

"Luna, Lynn, Lincoln, Lana, Lola...I'm sorry for having made you suffer through that itching powder prank. You had every right to be upset at me for that...and maybe I deserved what some of you either did to me or in Lynn's case, threatened to do."

She sighed and lowered her head down. Then, she looked up just in time to see her third oldest sister and roommate come over and gently embrace her.

"Hey, it's all good, sis. I probably shouldn't have drawn out that little argument we had or certainly not gone about slapping the taste out of your mouth, either." Luna said.

Following Luna's lead, Lynn, Lincoln and the twins also came along joined in hugging Luan in addition.

"I shouldn't have threatened you with that possible thrashing myself." Lynn said regretfully.

"Nor should I have lost my cool with you as well." Lincoln added, "Also, I hope you never try to put yourself though what looked like some sort of ritualistic humiliation as a means to get even with us ever again, Luan. You don't need to do that in order to earn our forgiveness."

"Yeah, we were so worried about you at that moment!" Lana said.

"Yeah, and by the way, we do forgive you, too." Lola added in conclusion.

For another moment, the six of them stayed together in this gaggle of a hug, then five-sixths of that equation let go while while Luan remained in place.

"Wow...thanks, you guys. That felt nice, but I'm still not done yet, because there's one thing that I should've apologized for weeks earlier. I think you all know exactly what I'm talking about…" She said with a rueful expression coming across her face.

For the first part of this particular apology, she approached the one who although he wasn't pranked himself, he may as well have been one of the most unneeded victims of all that happened.

"Dad, I'm so sorry for having manipulated you into going along with that whole recent April Fools' insanity in the first place. I know you think that you're as guilty, but that was entirely my fault and you shouldn't have been brought into it. I hope you don't hold it against me or anything like, even if I wouldn't blame you one bit if you ever did or still do."

"Aw, of course don't hold it against you." Lynn Sr. reassured her, outstretching his arms, "Bring it on in, my precious little prankster."

Like she needed to be told twice, Luan happily went into the accepting arms of her father and hugged him.

Finally, she returned back to the middle of the living room and addressed everyone one last time.

"And overall, I want to issue one huge apology to all of you for everything that occurred on that awful night. I can't ever explain well enough why I become who I am on and in the lead up to April Fools' Day, but those recent events have served as a huge wake up call for me. Many of you could've suffered a very untimely and unneeded fate and I'm eternally grateful everyone's still here and standing, because I can't stand the idea of any of you perishing or otherwise not being in my life. I don't plan to stop pranking or doing anything when April Fools' Day comes along, but I swear to you right now that I'll never do anything that jeopardizes your lives ever again. You all mean so much to me...I love you...and I'm sorry again.''

She began to tear up once more right as she was concluding her closing statement. Like with her initial apology from the start, she at first couldn't bear to look at her family straight in their eyes, but also someone was kind enough to come up and hug her. In this case, it was the one who did more on this day to help both with her physical recovery, but also with emphasizing how though she might've had reason to feel guilty, she didn't need to go into full blown self-flagellation either.

That individual of course was Leni and like when Luna did the same earlier, everyone else was encouraged into coming along for one big family group hug. Within it, Luan heard all sorts of loving words of forgiveness and affirmation directed to her, including from those she hadn't really heard from all day.

"You're literally so important to us." Lori said.

"One of the brightest lights in my world that's otherwise consumed by darkness." Lucy put it poetically so.

"A very exemplary and standout member of this familial unit in spite of, or even perhaps because of your whimsy in the field of pranking, excesses and all." Lisa added.

"Goo-goo!" Lily put it more simply as she was only able to at her age.

No matter how it was phrased, the sentiment was very clear: Luan was absolutely loved by her family and if she still had worries about how she conducts herself with regards to pranking or April Fools' Day, they were all too willing in helping her deal with those problems and making her a better person all the same.

As a result, she'll forever value and treasure them so.

**Author's Note:**

> So, that's makes another one done. Yes, for the curious, I had Lori, Lucy, Lisa and Lily wrap things up just so I made sure every member of the family had at least one line of dialogue in this one, hence that bit of description about Luan noting she hadn't heard from them until that point.
> 
> Also for the observant, this is the second time I used the events of the episode "Fool's Paradise" as a major plot point after I previously similarly used it in the latter third of "No Clowning Around". The reason I've done so is because I think that's the only April Fools' Day episode where Luan could have a realistic chance of feeling regrets over all that happened on her own volition. In the case of "April Fools' Rules", I doubt she had much in the way of regrets because of Lincoln voluntarily choosing to take all the pranks in the house and given there's that theory which posits the idea it was all an elaborate test by Luan to see the lengths he would go to prevent Ronnie Anne from getting hurt. With "Fool Me Twice", Luan showed remorse only when she thought her family was dead set on moving out of town before revealing it was all a prank. For that above mentioned reason, plus it being also my favorite of the April Fools' episodes and acting for the purposes of this story as if it being the only one having happened at all, that's why the events of "Fool's Paradise" was reused in this instance.
> 
> All right, that's a wrap for now. Thanks for the continued support, reading and everything in between. Until the next time as usual, see you then!


End file.
